Friday, July 8, 2011

Experimental Video Art 5 Exhibition, Thai - European Friendship 2008Narrative SurfacesThe power of the camera is to create a reality of its own. I like to think of this reality as narrative surfaces which are generated daily by photography, film and televistion, the internet and telecommunication. With an awareness and acute interest in apprehending this new world of pictures our era prefers the image to the thing, the copy to original, representation to reality and appearance to being. It is our contemporary form of information, communication and a new kind of knowledge. In her essay "The Image-World" by Susan Sontag noted the impact of pictures created by the camera and their virtually unlimited authority in a modern society whose chief activities are producing and consuming images. Sontag mentioned that unlike paintings that are merely interpretations of reality, image produced by the camera go beyond this definition. The camera creates trace of reality. Representation by means of photography followed by film and video is an imprint of the real and because of this visual sameness we have adapted it as evidence that something exists or did exist. Referring to French critic and social theorist Roland Barthes our acceptance of photography's ability to represent without a style has naturalised what are in fact invented and highly structured meanings. He explains that a picture is not so much a solid representation of present or the past but serves as a reminder of reality's inconstant and ever changing state. By capturing a moment of reality either photographic, film or video representation enters a complicated relationship between subjectivity, meaning and cultural society. Pictures carry obvious symbolic and purely personal meaning. They contain narratives on their surfaces that are significant for our grasp of the world and for a global cultural understanding.